Herschel!

[poliphilo]

OK, so I was sounding off about Trafalgar the other day and last night I was watching one of those improving cultural history programmes the BBC does so well. This one was about the history of science and it majored on the work of the 18th century astronomer William Herschel.

I came away wondering why this stuff isn't taught in schools. Herschel invented the reflecting telescope, discovered Uranus (no snarky comments please), mapped the Milky Way and was the first person to form a true estimate of the ginormous size of the universe. If these achievements don't make him a greater man than Admiral Lord Horatio Nelson (I nearly wrote Hornblower) I'll eat my (gold-trimmed, three-cornered) hat.

Comments

[hastursdaughter.livejournal.com]

They could begin by putting Nelson and Wellington on the syllabus (before they consider Herschel) given that all this Trafalgar expense and celebration probably has little meaning, to those children (or indeed some adults) who are not in Plymouth or Portsmouth, other than as very pretty boats and fireworks seen on TV on Tuesday night. :-)

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

Are they no longer on the syllabus? They were in my day.

[hastursdaughter.livejournal.com]

Unfortunately not; In secondary school, we had the importance of battlements in castles, and 1066 for the first year; War of Roses, and Henry VIII & assortment of wives for the second year; and Elizabeth I, plus relatives for the third year. Beyond that History was voluntary, where we were taught the progress of medicine from Egyptians to Early 19th Century, and completed a project on the history of our home town.

As far as I am aware, A-level history focuses on Nazi Germany, and I know that A-level English Lit covers the propaganda, poetry, and drama influenced by WWI.

Alas, no ships! (so for me, these Trafalgar celebrations have led to a history lesson - by my own choice - that I wasn’t taught earlier, rather than meaning anything political).

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

So much history- so little time to teach it in!

I really don't know what the answer is.

Well I do. The answer is good teachers- people who can get kids so fired up about the past that they go home and do their own reading and research.

Only you can't legislate for good teachers.

[ibid.livejournal.com]

Oh God yes! A lot of university departments are extremely concerned about the 20th centurey Dictatorship bias at A-level -so much so that a good a level is almost of no use if you want to do history.